CBS, SEC sign record 15-year deal

Calling the SEC “the gold standard of college athletics,” CBS announced Thursday that it had signed an unprecedented 15-year extension to show the league’s football and men’s basketball game through the year 2023. Financial terms of the deal were not released.

The current contract between the SEC and CBS was scheduled to end after the 2008 season. The two parties have been negotiating for the entire year.

This new deal with CBS, however, does not eliminate the ongoing possibility of an SEC television network. That won’t be determined until the SEC announces the remainder of its television contracts with ESPN and Raycom. That announcement is expected later this month or in early September.

“This is a great day for CBS,” said Mike Aresco, the vice president for programming at the network. “The SEC is the gold standard for college athletics. It has been a great conference for 76 years and that will never change. We love the enthusiasm of the fans and the way they support the game.”

Aresco said that CBS and the SEC talked about several different options when it came to the length of this new contract.

“But at the end of the day the comfort level is so great and the trust is so great that we decided to lock this in for the long haul,” Aresco said. “This is a great deal for both sides.”

CBS has an 11-year deal with the NCAA to televise the men’s basketball tournament. This 15-year television deal is believed to be the longest in the history of college sports.

But in this new deal CBS did get the right to pick the first football game during every week of the regular season. In the previous deal ESPN got the first pick a few weeks out of the season.

CBS will do one prime time game per season, leaving Saturday nights for ESPN.

The deal also includes certain digital and wireless rights. Aresco said CBS will considering streaming some games on the internet.

“The Southeastern Conference is pleased to extend its long-standing relationship with CBS,” commissioner Mike Slive said on Thursday.

Contracts like the new one with CBS are the reason that the SEC continues to generate record revenue each year. Last May in Destin the SEC announced that it was sharing $127.2 million with its 12 members. Of that total, $50.6 came from television rights for regular-season football. In 1990 the SEC shared only $16.3 million in revenue with its members. The largest part of that growth has been from the explosion of televised football.